SIR, anti-incumbency, resurgent Left-Cong make Bengal polls a nail-biter

The issue that has kept both voters and political parties in West Bengal on tenterhooks throughout the election, eclipsing every other theme in this electoral battle, is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.

What has made the SIR particularly contentious is not just its scale, but its timing and execution.

On Tuesday (April 28), just hours before the second and final phase of polling, the Election Commission released another supplementary list incorporating 1,468 names cleared through tribunal proceedings under the SIR exercise, effectively pushing the question of voter eligibility to the very edge of polling day.

Narratives and counter-narratives

In a state with a history of fierce electoral contests, such a contentious exercise has amplified political uncertainty. And that uncertainty has become central to the campaign, with both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) weaving their broader narratives into the SIR exercise.

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For the BJP, the exercise fits squarely into its long-standing claim that illegal migration from Bangladesh has altered the state’s demography.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has, in multiple rallies, warned of “infiltrators” influencing electoral outcomes, while Home Minister Amit Shah has argued that such names must be identified and removed from voter rolls, connecting the SIR to the party’s national security and identity politics plank.

Will it be enough?

That message appears to have found traction beyond the BJP’s traditional support base.

The mood on the ground during the campaign suggests that sections of the Hindu middle class, including the Bengali bhadralok (genteel class), have shown a degree of acceptance of the argument that the rolls required “correction” to weed out alleged illegal migrants, lending the BJP’s narrative a wider social legitimacy.

The BJP is banking on this acceptance to break through in Bengal, its last remaining electoral frontier in the east.

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But whether that support is large enough to bridge its seven-percentage-point vote-share gap with the TMC in the 2024 parliamentary elections remains to be seen. The gap was 10 percentage points in the 2021 assembly elections.

Mamata’s return as a street fighter

The TMC, on the other hand, has sought to turn the BJP’s argument on its head. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has accused the poll panel of overreach, repeatedly alleging that the revision exercise is aimed at disenfranchising genuine Bengali voters.

“They are trying to snatch voting rights,” she has said at rallies, framing the issue as one of identity and dignity, and linking it to her party’s broader Bengali sub-nationalism narrative.

The SIR has, in effect, allowed Mamata to return to familiar political ground as a street fighter confronting an unjust system, both in court and on the streets.

“Mamata Banerjee is simultaneously projecting herself as a victim of institutional overreach and as the sole protector of Bengali voters, turning the voter list issue into a narrative of conspiracy against her political base,” said political commentator Debashis Chakrabarti.

A delicate fault line

Yet, the politics around the issue has not been without complications for her. Protests in minority-dominated areas such as Malda over alleged deletions, some of which turned violent, have exposed a delicate fault line.

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Mamata’s criticism of the violence, while aimed at maintaining law and order, has created unease within sections of her Muslim support base, even as she seeks to sustain a broader narrative of defending voters’ rights.

The Congress and the Left Front have blamed both the TMC and the BJP for the SIR mess, adding another layer to the war of words over the administrative exercise, though they remain peripheral players in the issue.

With the two principal players investing heavily in the SIR narrative, the issue has become one of the most decisive factors in this election.

Whoever wins the narrative around SIR is likely to gain the edge in the overall electoral battle.

An undercurrent of dissatisfaction

Running alongside this high-pitched narrative battle is a quieter but persistent undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the TMC government.

Throughout the 43-day campaign, complaints over lack of employment opportunities surfaced repeatedly, particularly among younger voters.

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The Opposition has also highlighted corruption allegations and high-profile criminal cases, including the RG Kar hospital incident, to question the government’s record.

However, whether this discontent translates into electoral damage for the ruling party depends on how Opposition votes align.

No longer a bipolar fight

The BJP stands to benefit the most from a consolidated anti-incumbency sentiment. But West Bengal’s political landscape is no longer strictly bipolar.

The re-emergence of the CPI(M)-led Left Front and the Congress during the campaign, at least in terms of visibility and traction, has injected a degree of unpredictability, making this election harder to predict than past West Bengal elections, which typically showed a clear and discernible trend.

Both parties have reported encouraging responses in pockets during the campaign. A revival of the Congress in its traditional strongholds of Malda and Murshidabad could eat into the TMC’s minority vote base, while even a marginal recovery in Left support, by pulling back its erstwhile supporters who shifted to the BJP after 2019, could dent the BJP’s gains.

Left’s strange right-turn

The BJP emerged as a major political force from a fringe player in the state by taking away almost the entire vote share of the Left in the 2019 parliamentary elections. The shift was driven by a strange strand of political reasoning in which a section of the Left believed that, to weaken the TMC, it was necessary to align with the BJP at the grassroots level.

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The idea was that once the TMC was defeated, the Left could later reclaim its space by bringing back its support base, in what came to be described as the “agey Ram, pore Bam” formulation, meaning first the BJP and then the Left.

That strategic logic has since come under criticism within the Left itself. In this election, CPI(M) leaders have publicly urged voters not to back the BJP, arguing that any such tactical shift in the past weakened the Left’s own base rather than rebuilding it.

The appeal has focused on consolidating anti-incumbency sentiment directly in favour of the Left Front instead of routing it through the BJP.

Such fragmentation could blunt the impact of anti-incumbency, allowing the ruling party to retain an edge despite visible voter grievances.

TMC’s welfare scheme edge

Despite allegations of gaps in delivery and charges from non-TMC supporters that access to welfare benefits is uneven, the ruling party’s extensive welfare schemes continue to give it an edge, particularly in rural areas and among women voters.

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The BJP, unlike in the past, has not dismissed these schemes but has countered them by promising higher benefit amounts, setting up a choice for voters between the TMC’s existing welfare delivery and the BJP’s promise of enhanced payouts.

Didi’s personal appeal

At the centre of wider contest remains Mamata Banerjee, still the most recognisable and politically dominant figure in the state.

Her campaign has once again leaned heavily on personal appeal, with the chief minister reiterating that a vote for her party is effectively a vote for her. “I am the candidate in all 294 seats,” she said at rallies.

The strategy is designed to dilute dissatisfaction with local leaders and candidates by elevating the contest into a direct appeal to her leadership.

No longer unassailable

But after more than a decade and a half in power, the limits of that strategy are being tested.

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Allegations of corruption, nepotism and politicisation of state institutions, particularly the police, have eroded parts of her image.

While she remains more popular than any Opposition leader, she is no longer politically unassailable.

Whether she can once again draw on her political charisma to lead her party to victory against the odds, as in the past, will ultimately be tested on the EVMs.